The LBNL (also known as Berkeley Lab) is a highly reputable national laboratory. Eleven scientists associated with the Lab have won the Nobel Prize. In addition, thirteen have won the National Medal of Science, the United State's highest award for lifetime achievement in fields of scientific research.

Berkeley Lab is a member of the national laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through its Office of Science. It is managed by the University of California (UC) and is charged with conducting unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Located on a 200-acre site in the hills above the UC Berkeley campus that offers spectacular views of the San Francisco Bay, Berkeley Lab employs approximately 4,000 scientists, engineers, support staff and students. Its budget for 2009 was approximately $650 million. Studies estimate the Laboratory’s overall economic impact through direct, indirect and induced spending on the nine counties that make up the San Francisco Bay Area to be nearly $700 million annually. The overall economic impact on the global economy is an estimated $1.4 billion a year. Technologies developed at Berkeley Lab have generated billions of dollars in revenues, and thousands of jobs. Savings as a result of Berkeley Lab developments in lighting and windows, and other energy-efficient technologies, have also been in the billions of dollars.

History

Berkeley Lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence, a UC Berkeley physicist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that opened the door to high-energy physics. It was Lawrence’s belief that scientific research is best done through teams of individuals with different fields of expertise, working together. His teamwork concept is a Berkeley Lab legacy that continues today."

Bringing Science Solutions to the World

Berkeley Lab is an incubator for ideas, innovations and products that helps society and explains how the Universe works, including:

Renewable energy sources such as biofuels and artificial photosynthesis

Energy efficiency at home, at work, and around the world

The ability to observe, probe and assemble materials atom by atom

Climate change research, environmental science and the growing connections between them

The chemistry and physics of matter and force the Universe—from the infinite to the infinitesimal